Gathering information before making a decision should be an obvious first step when making an investment. In our personal lives, even minor decisions are usually discussed before making purchases. The same holds true in strategic decisions for your credit union. The best executives know how to encourage employee engagement and make them feel involved in the direction of the credit union. Employee engagement positively relates to results. Are you involving your staff on critical decisions in your credit union? What would your member service reps or loan officers want you to know when selecting a core system?

When staff is involved in selecting credit union core software, they feel valued as a contributor to the credit union’s success. When people feel valued, their effort level increases. They have accurate information about the direction of the credit union, and the chances of the decision being a success increase since all team members are committed to the decision and correcting any issues that might detract from the CU's vision.

A credit union's core technology is one of the most critical components in its operational efficiency. Advanced reporting and automated disaster recovery are features that play a crucial role in the decision-making process; yet to your member service representatives who are in front of your members consistently, their items of importance most likely vary from that of the senior management team. When performing a core system review, finding the day-to-day activities that matter most to making you MSR's job more efficient will be one of the most noticeable things a member sees. 

Additionally, staff who do not feel they have been involved in making the decision are more likely to show signs of being unhappy with change, and can be heard saying “it wasn’t my decision,” or “it's not like the old system.” Even if they reserve those comments for internal discussions, the attitude will pervade in their interactions with members. So what are some important features your member service reps will appreciate in new credit union core software?

1. Speed: To a member service rep the speed of the system is important, waiting for a system to respond, especially when the member service line is long can be frustrating.
2. Uptime: Reliability provides efficiency, allowing your member service team to perform their job well on a consistent basis. The last thing a MSR wants is their system to freeze or go down with a member standing in front of them.
3. 360° Member View: Member service reps live in transaction processing and member service screens, and having only one monitor, it's vital to have an all-inclusive view of the member and their relationships across the credit union.
4. Data Integrity: MSRs need to have confidence in their system's member data in order to serve members with certainty. They want to know that the member information is real-time and displays the most recent changes to ACH distributions, loan due dates and other account status updates. Account notes and warnings should be all encompassing and display in transaction processing screens, even if the change, update or note were added through another member account.